Facebook Page vs Group: A Facebook Marketing Dilemma

Many businesses today are seeking to start up a Facebook presence online, from the newest startups and smallest mom ‘n’ pop shops to companies with decades of experience and large corporations. However, the first thing people find out is that Facebook isn’t a one-option-fits-all site. There are different options when creating a home for your brand, business or association.

A Facebook page and a Facebook group each has its benefits, and they’re totally different things. So, this leaves some at a complete standstill in terms of which to select. To know which option best suits your needs, let’s examine the difference in a page and a group and subsequently look at the pros and cons of each.

Quick note: you may remember (if you are a loyal reader and have a super awesome memory) that I’ve previously posted a similar article on this subject: Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups – worth checking out as well. However it’s always nice to have a refresher course in these key Facebook marketing subjects, particularly as Facebook changes things so often!

The Differences Between a Page and a Group

A Facebook Page

Designed to act more like a personal profile for businesses, public figures, and organizations, a Facebook page is basically a place to create an authentic representation of what you’re about. It’s very similar to a basic profile in structure and function, but the intent is for the actual page to become the entity rather than the person behind a profile. For instance, your brand is what’s known by its page – e.g. the Coca-Cola brand and its page and promotions and fans, not the CEO of the company and its followers.

Connecting with a page allows a user to closely follow the brand. Pages are also verified for authenticity and can help a brand develop a deeper level of trust.

A Facebook Group

Pages act as profiles for entities, while groups act more like places for like-minded communication. People who share common interests and want to express their opinions in a safe forum will either join or become part of a group for these purposes. Charities, organizations, people with the same objectives, etc, all find groups very useful.

Think about the differences in respect to the previous Presidential Election. Barack Obama would have had a Facebook page, whereas people organizing for his campaign would have belonged to a group – a conglomeration of members. Both send updates to News Feeds and can be used by businesses, but they’re quite different.

Of course, it’s not either-or here. You can always create a page and create and/or belong to a group. Your options aren’t limited in this respect. Just know that they’re different; so if you want to go the group route, that’s not a page, and vice versa.

The Pros and Cons of Pages and Groups

Page Pros:

Pages are much easier to update and stand as better options for brands who frequently add new material

A brand page looks more like a personal profile, so you can play to the social context of the site better and engage at higher levels

Pages have customizable URLs and you can better promote the page to fans directly

Pages give you more options for posting photos, events, various links, etc

Page owners can distinguish their content from other content to make it stand out

Pages allow you to create a banner and personalize the page more to your purpose

Page Cons:

It typically takes a lot longer to promote a page, even though it’s easier to promote per options and function

Conversations are more difficult to manage, especially between fans

Everything’s more out in the open with a page, so you have to monitor things more closely

Group Pros:

In groups you can easily communicate with all members via chat, email, wall posts, messages, and even create a shared Doc

A business is allowed to promote an event through Groups in general, whereas a page doesn’t allow that option

Groups tend to display a higher degree of personality and even personalization, since they’re often created to be personal presences rather than brand presences

Making common connections is much easier through a group setting, particularly for businesses searching for contacts

Group Cons:

Unlike pages, groups don’t allow you to add on any additional applications for promotions or aesthetics

For business purposes, it’s harder to keep track of what you’re doing in a group, because Facebook Insights is not available in this format

The lack of a vanity URL makes it hard to fully customize and personalize a group

In a group you’re always going to be playing to a much narrower audience

Groups are very difficult for other people to find unless they’re already part of a group or have a friend who joins

Deciding on a group or a page is probably going to boil down to what you’re trying to accomplish. If you’re part of an organizing committee or need to rely on other people and entities for business, a group might be more up your alley. Whereas brands looking to do business would be better served with a page to handle their presence.

Author’s Bio: Craig Robinson is a professional writer for Qwaya, a technology company specializing in Facebook marketing.

Community Answers

Hey there thanks for clearing this up for me. I always wondered what the difference was. I can see the benefits of both and can understand why some marketers are getting frustrated by the lack of reach that has happened recently.
I am now thinking of setting up a group for my coaching clients.
Thankyou
Jenelle

Do you know of a way for a business to be the admin of a group and not an individual employee? I’m actually with a non-profit. While we have pages for our organization, we prefer to have groups for different activities (to promote conversation). However, I haven’t figured out how we can manage that without it being my personal profile. Any ideas are?

At my work we recently created a fb profile in the company name and this has worked well for us, especially for being logged in to the ipad (to share posts across from instagram) which we all have access to. I am looking into creating a group as well, and I would definitely use this profile instead of my personal one. Hopefully this idea works for you too!

Cara, I’ve tried a PAGE on facebook for my business. It’s taking so long to get members to it, even with promotions. I am thinking of switching to a GROUP PAGE instead, even though it is for a public facing business (real estate).

I have a group of about 400 already established for my non-profit. It works well for us, but wondering if we should establish a page as well for visibility purposes. Myself or my employees can’t list the group as their place of employment either. I don’t see any possible harm in maintaining a group for our members and keeping a page up to date for people searching for us. Would love to hear your thoughts.

I wish I had done more research before I started my page. I actually should have made it a group, but I guess I couldn’t of found that out until after the fact, as I didn’t know there was a difference. I now have a page and want a group. Is there a way for me to change my page to a group or do I have to (I fear, ugh) start over? Please and any advise, ty! Nan

I currently have had a FB Page for years and am thinking about a group instead. I have a friend with a group page that I’ve “envied” because she seemed to have great engagement with lots of sales. I have also considered keeping both.

My question is: What is the recommended protocol for switching everyone over?? Do I just go adding everyone I know to the group page? I’ve heard that is bad etiquette. Do I make a public announcement and simply hope people join it?

I have a business selling liquidation items online only. I created a group to sell my items that members can purchase only from. No selling. Here members of the group contact me when interested in an item. Would I be better to create a page instead? Could it be used in the same manner and how would I transition without losing existing members or should I create both?

I have a personal Facebook page that was created for an event that takes place every year. The personal page now has 4000 friends. The page is also used to inform people of other things relating to the event throughout the year (i.e. how to purchase shirts and the link, link to the band that is playing the event, boat rental place nearby and etc). I would like to maintain the ability to create an event and share it which you can’t do with a group (as far as I know anyway). Since my page already has 4000 friends do you feel turning it into a page would be effective?

Hi Krista
Do you mean a profile or a page? I do think it would be best in this case to have a page rather than a group or profile. If you have a profile and friends, it would be good to change to a page with likes.

I have a group page that we communicate with our customers in daily engagements. We have facebook live shows from this page logged in as either myself or my daughter in law. When we comment during the engagements or live shows it is showing as our individual names, I understand that perfectly. I have a business page created that I use for facebook ads only. If someone comments, I can comment as Lularoe…

I would like to go live under the name of our group page and I would like to comment that way. Should I create another individual page with a different log in or how can I fix this problem? also, I would like our customers to message our business page instead of us individually?

We have a page for our bank. We are currently running a promo asking our customers to take a picture with our banks koozie and post it to our page. Problem is, it won’t post to our feed, only to the visitor posts. You then have to click on visitor posts to view them. Is there a way to make these show up on our feed without having the bank page share each post?

Hey there, I’ve got two separate FB pages – one was more of a like minded people space and the other is a true business page. Now I’m trying to decide whether to merge the two pages and create a group under the business brand page. Any thoughts to whether that makes sense and then how i’d use a group under the page most effectively?

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Hi there, my name is Cara Pring, welcome to The Social Skinny, a website dedicated to social media and website optimization strategy. If you want simple, jargon-free tips and updates, you've come to the right place! Outside the geeky expert stuff I'm a crazy cat lady from Sydney - and no, that is not me in the header (everyone asks). You can find out more about me in the About page or you can connect with me on Twitter, FB, LinkedIn & G+. Thanks for stopping by :)
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